This application is related to Japanese application No. HEI 9(1997)-243019, filed on Sep. 8, 1997, whose priority is claimed under 35 USC xc2xa7119, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference in its entirety.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and a device for generating data for an application and a storage medium containing thereon a program for generating data for an application. Particularly, the method and the device are capable of being suitably used for information processing devices such as portable information handling terminals and portable electronic organizers, especially information processing devices using schedule or memorandum applications.
2. Description of Related Art
As personal computers and various kinds of software became widespread in recent years, a so-called schedule book, which has been managed with paper and pencils so far, has become capable of being managed on a personal computer. Now it is possible to manage not only a personal schedule but also progress of a group work smoothly.
Conventionally, schedule data, based on which the schedule management is conducted, is inputted manually by a user into a schedule on a personal computer, that is, into a file of a schedule management application on a personal computer. The schedule data includes, for example, contents of an electronic mail received from a customer indicating an appointment time, date and place. Conventionally, since the schedule data is manually inputted into personal computers, there may be mistakes in input.
Mistakes involved in manual input can be avoided by directly transferring text of the electronic mail into the schedule on the personal computer using a cut and paste function or the like.
However, this processing must be done with both a screen for displaying the electronic mail and a screen for inputting schedule data opened. For this reason, in terminals such as portable information handling terminals having only a small area for display, operability is significantly impaired since the screens overlay.
As technique to overcome this problem, known is an electronic information device disclosed by Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No.HEI 5(1993)-20274. In this electronic information device, a document is produced beforehand to include a plurality of sentences each headed by a key word indicative of an attribute of the sentence. The key word indicates what kind of data the sentence represents, e.g., date, address, name or the like. When the text is used on other application such as schedule management, the text is scanned. A sentence in the text which is found by scanning to have a key word indicative of its attribute on the head is extracted as a sentence of the attribute corresponding to the key word. The extracted sentence is recorded in format data corresponding to its attributes.
However, in such an electronic information handling device, a user must always produce sentences with paying attention to the key words defining the attributes thereof. In other word, before one produces a text, one must always consider whether or not the produced text is to be used on another application. Further, the disclosed invention does not function on sentences without the addition of key words indicative of their attributes, and therefore does not function on a text such as an electronic mail which has not been produced by the user. Further, even in the case where all sentences in a text are of the same attributes, the attributes key words must be designated on every sentence.
In view of the above-described circumstances, the present invention is to provide a method and a device for generating data for an application in which an attributes is set to a selected character string in an existing text and the character string is transferred to a place corresponding to the attributes.
The present invention provides a method for generating data for an application comprising the steps of determining a character string composed of at least one character to be transferred from a text displayed by display means, designating an attributes for the determined character string, and transferring the determined character string to a place corresponding to the designated attribute.
According to the present invention, since the determined character string is transferred to the place corresponding to the designated attribute, it is possible to separately create a new sentence from the character string in the existing text for which the attribute is designated.
In other words, when an electronic mail related to an appointment is received, for example, it is possible to select a sentence indicating an appointed place, and transfer and record the sentence as schedule data or the like in a schedule management application.